ments both external and internal, and such as cause a perfect adhesion to this truth, that they are God's word; an adhesion, I say, so perfect as excludes all manner of practical doubting."1 "If you will not allow Scripture to give testimony to itself, who shall give testimony to it?... 'quoad nos' it is to be allowed to be primely credible, because there is no creature besides it that is so. Indeed God was pleased to find out ways to prove the Scriptures to be his word, his immediate word, by miraculous consignations and sufficient testimony and confession of enemies, and of all men that were fit to bear witness that these books were written by such men who by miracle were proved to be Divini homines,' men endued with God's Spirit, and trusted with his message; and when it was thus far proved by God, it became the immediate and sole ministry of entire salvation, and the whole repository of the Divine will; and when things were come thus far, if it be inquired whether the Scriptures were a sufficient institution to salvation, we need no other, we can have no better testimony than itself concerning itself." 2

BISHOP STILLIngfleet.

We pass on to another learned prelate of the English Church, whose name has been put forward by Mr. Keble as an authority in favour of the views we have been considering. It were useless to express the surprise, and more than surprise, with which one views such names so used. I will proceed at once to show his real sentiments on the points in question, for which the extracts already given in former parts of this work will have prepared the reader. I quote principally from the very same work from which Mr. Keble has given his extract.3

On the first point, then, as to Church-tradition being an unwritten word of God or divine informant, his whole

1 Bk. 1. § 2. x. 383, 4.

2 Ib. pp. 387, 8.

3 A rational account of the grounds of Protestant Religion, being a vindication of the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury's [Laud's] relation of a Conference, &c., from the pretended answer by T. C. Lond. 1665. fol.

course of reasoning is directly and in terms opposed to it, and he tells us,--" We say that to us, who enjoy the Scriptures as delivered down to us, the only certain and infallible conveyance of God's word to us is by them." Nay, he ridicules the idea of an unwritten word. After quoting a passage from Clemens Alexandrinus, intimating that nothing was to be received without the written word, he asks in derision, "Where was the unwritten word then?”? Again, still more distinctly;-"The reason of his [i. e. Archbishop Laud's] falling on the unwritten word, is not his fear of stooping to the Church to show it him, and finally depend on her authority, but to show the unreasonableness of your proceedings, who talk much of an unwritten word, and are not able to prove ANY SUCH THING. If he will not believe any unwritten word but what is shown him delivered by the prophets and Apostles,' I think he hath a great deal of reason for such incredulity.” 3

The Bishop then proceeds to observe that the statements of the Romanist whom he was refuting, might be summed up in the three following positions; "1. That there is an unwritten word which must be believed by us, containing such doctrinal traditions as are warranted by the Church for Apostolical. 2. That the ground of believing this unwritten word is from the infallibility of the Church, which defines it to be so. 3. That our belief of the Scriptures must be grounded on such an unwritten word which is warranted by the Church." The only difference, then, between this Romanist and the Tractators is, that for the infallibility of the Church they would substitute the rule of Vincentius for discovering catholic consent, which with them is an unwritten word. Does the Bishop hold out any support to such notions when refuting these positions? Far, very far from it; and as for the rule of Vincentius, we shall see hereafter how little weight he attached to it even for the discovery of catholic consent. Proceeding to disprove the first position, he

1

p. 192.

2 p. 274.

3

P. 161.

says, "These three things are necessary ingredients of this unwritten word. 1. That it must be originally Apostolical; and not only so, but it must be of Divine revelation to the Apostles too. For otherwise it cannot be God's word at all, and therefore not his unwritten word. I quarrel not at all with you for speaking of an unwritten word, IF YOU COULD PROVE IT; for it is evident to me that God's word is no more so by being written or printed than if it were not so, for the writing adds no authority to the word, but only is a more certain means of conveying it to us. It is therefore God's word, as it proceeds from him, and that which is now his written word was once his unwritten word; but, however, whatever is God's word must come from him, and since you derive the source of the unwritten word from the Apostles, whatever you call an unwritten word you must be sure to derive its pedigree down from them. So that insisting on that point of time when this was declared and owned for an unwritten word, you must be able to show that it came from the Apostles, otherwise it cannot be owned as an Apostolical tradition. 2. That what you call an unwritten word must be something doctrinal, so you call them yourself doctrinal traditions, i. e. such as contain in them somewhat dogmatical or necessary to be believed by us; and thence it was this controversie rose from the dispute concerning the sufficiency of the Scriptures as a rule of faith, whether that contained ALL God's word, or ALL MATTERS TO BE BELIEVED OR NO; or, whether there were not some objects of faith which were never written, but conveyed by tradition. 3. That what is thus doctrinal must be declared by the Church to be an Apostolical tradition, which you in terms assert. According, then, to these rules, we come to examine the evidences by you produced for such an unwritten word." And having examined the instances produced of an unwritten word, among which are the traditions as to Scripture being the word of God, infant baptism, and the observance of the Lord's day,

he concludes, "Among all these instances, therefore, we are yet to seek for such a doctrinal tradition as makes an unwritten word." 1

Nay, he points out "the great uncertainty of knowing Apostolical traditions, some things having been taken for such which we believe were not so, and others which could not be known whether so or no, by the ages next succeeding the Apostles." (p. 249.)

But above all, let me recommend to Mr. Keble's and the reader's attention the passage already quoted from him, relating to the authority of what is called Catholic consent, and the boasted rule of Vincentius Lirinensis for ascertaining it. "Wise men who have throughly considered of Vincentius his way, though in general they cannot but approve of it so far as to think it highly IMPROBABLE that there should be antiquity, universality, and consent against THE TRUE AND GENUINE SENSE OF SCRIPTUre, yet when they consider this way of Vincentius with all those cautions restrictions and limitations set down by him (1. 1. c. 39), they are apt to think that HE HATH PUT MEN TO A WILD-GOOSE-CHASE TO FIND OUT ANYTHING ACCORDING

TO HIS RULES, and that St. Augustine spake a great deal more to the purpose when he spake concerning all the writers of the Church, That although they had never so much learning and sanctity, he did not think it true because they thought so, but because they persuaded him to believe it true EITHER FROM THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE OR SOME PROBABLE reason." "2 And, in another place, he shows by an instance out of the Treatise of Vincentius," how little the judgment of Vincentius Lyrinensis is to be relied on as to traditions," and "how little certainty in his way of finding out traditions."

These passages, be it remembered, occur in the very same work from which Mr. Keble has quoted to show that Bishop Stillingfleet held that catholic consent, as ascertained by this rule of Vincentius, is part of the rule of faith!!

And so in another work, he speaks of "the notorious

1

pp. 161, 162, 166.

2 p. 279.

3

P. 247.

uncertainty of mere tradition," adding, "I say notorious, because there never was any trial made of it but it failed, even when it had the greatest advantages."

1

As it respects the second, third, and fourth positions, we shall find him equally in our favour.

Church-tradition forms with him no part of the rule of faith, for, as he says elsewhere, "all faith must suppose a Divine testimony revealing those things to us as the ground on which we believe them."2 Throughout his whole Treatise the Scriptures are invariably and prominently put forward as the sole and sufficient rule of faith. He says,-" Doth not he [i. e. Irenæus] tell us but three chapters before this, 'That we have received the method or doctrine of our salvation from those persons who preached it, which by God's command they after delivered in the Scriptures, which were to be the foundation and pillar of our faith.' Could anything be more fully spoken to our purpose than this is? Whereby he shows us, now the Scriptures are consigned unto us, what that is which our faith must stand upon ... that word of God which is delivered to us. This therefore he elsewhere calls the unmovable canon of our faith, as St. Augustine calls it divinam stateram, the divine balance we must weigh the grounds of our belief in.” 3

"It were easy to multiply the citations out of other books of St. Austin, to show how much he attributed to Scripture as the only rule of faith.” ♦ "The infallible rule of faith to us is the Scripture, viz. that which LIMITS and BOUNDS the material objects of faith which we are bound to believe, and this doth therefore discover to us what those things are which on the account of the formal object [of faith] we are obliged to believe."5 Is it possible to have the view for which we contend more clearly, fully, and explicitly expressed than it is in this passage?

Again; having quoted a passage from Irenæus, he says,

1 See his "Scripture and tradition compared," a Sermon on Col. ii. 6. Lond. 1688. 4to. p. 23, or in Bishop Gibson's Preservative, vol. i. tit. 4. p. 186. This was one of his latest works on the subject.

2

p. 100.

3 p. 192.